


The Visitor

by Dani Dandelion (rat_insatiable)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rat_insatiable/pseuds/Dani%20Dandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't even knock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visitor

The visitor descends upon the town, invisible snow with the weight of a hearse. People go from cheerful laughter to pale shambling over the course of a mid-morning walk. They remain much the same as they return home, or seek respite elsewhere. The people reveal little of their condition on the outside, save for a general malaise.

Inside, a universal uninvited houseguest bustles with renovations, pounding long nails and slathering gritty mortar without so much as a _"Please excuse the mess."_ Within days, their bodies are in such disrepair that the unwanted guest is likely all that holds them together.

Another week, and all affected know this is true. They are nothing without this overstayed visitor. Two weeks, and the visitor kicks the scaffolding down.

The first few victims give up the ghost. Even as an owner leaves, the guest refuses to give up the home they stole. Cleanup crews in dehumanizing white suits come for condemned flesh, and the guest wafts through the front doors of their air filters.

It gains the name "Squatter" from the medical community. Squatter dodges all attempts at capture, and stays in the host until it takes everything, or a warm body gets too close. Even the demineralized bones it leaves are not safe to approach, as Squatter rides the wind to the nearest source of heat and sweat. It clings harmlessly to every endothermic creature—except humans.

Discarded skeletons with a termite-eaten look become a common sight. Legend has it that if you can count its teeth, you're already roommates with the Squatter. Clenching agony blocks out the pain of ostracization soon enough.

If there's anything good to say about Squatter, it's a quiet guest. Its internal rebuilding projects are soundproofed by skin and muscle, rendering its hosts too weak for the smallest whimper. Squatter possesses an enviable work ethic—industrious, consistent, toiling away well past quitting time, and more opportunistic than a stock broker.

Squatter decimates humanity with endless reconstruction, draining life to fund silence. Eventually, the interior decoration mogul runs out of homes to barge into.

Then it turns its renovation skills upon itself to enter less-evolved domiciles.

**Author's Note:**

> Describe an illness as a presence, like a person of its own.


End file.
